Great fun! I ran it for my own birthday as the DM.
Some potential SPOILERS ahead to help out other DMs: For my group (who likes to talk to people) I sped up the game by removing the junkyard encounter entirely, and made the study encounter much shorter by making the person there deliver the exposition and then turn into a pinata before being attacked by phantom wooden bats and disappearing in a burst of confetti (and players also wanted him to drop sweets, so he did) in front of the place the characters were meant to go next. That avoids two long fights/encounters. My players defeated the final boss extremely quickly, but that actually worked out because by then we were pushing past 4 hours so it helped to wrap things up. It might be better to swap to less of the mobs in the room and beef up the stats of the boss though if you want that to be more dramatic. Also, my players were deadset on chasing the mobs that were meant to escape for plot purposes at the very beginning, so to help you speed up that part I recommend you say something like "Skillfully you manage to pick off all the lights you can see in the night, and for a moment everything goes back to darkness. And then in the very far distance, well out of range, you see one more light flitting inbetween what seems to be trees. It seems you didn't spot this one leaving a lot earlier than the others." It's railroady, but if you want people to finish the oneshot in 4 hours, it might be necessary. Oh, and I highly recommend getting a track of music ready to play that reminds you of your birthday parties as a kid for an encounter near the end, my players were laughing a lot and dancing to them (For example, Macarena, Mambo No. 5, Thriller, Reach, etc.). Hope that helps!
|